BACK ALLEY 15

human, being

there are five houses seated on the horizon line behind my father's house. in the after-sunset blue, they seem humble: the dark, simple shapes close to the ground & chimneyed roofs gently sloping. i can see nothing beyond; the world ends with them. somewhere in its darkness are frogs, hundreds of them,  and a few clearly chirping crickets. i'd like to say that they are talking, but they don't seem to be trying to speak to me or even each other. instead, they sing in the way i breathe. i understand. my mind is slowly giving way to my body. the world is receding to only what i can taste and touch and see. in the garden, i feel the pull to crawl on the cool dirt until i am only sun & flowers & wind, and whatever is beyond the line seems as trifling as a dream. i am becoming like them. day by day, the houses look more like huts, and i imagine the clouds above them are plumes of smoke from cooking fires. i can feel the generations that stretch behind me & the bones beneath my skin, thousands of years old, that only want to breathe and move and kiss and run through the night full of whirling stars. i don't ever want to feel anything but this. i don't think that i was ever meant to.